Our deferred renderer is far from basic though - the rendering team at SMS has about 100 man years of render coding between us, and we used some of the most advanced techniques that are known at this time. We did our best - so it's sometimes disappointing after so many late nights to see flippant remarks, over constructive criticism.

So, this new engine allowed us to do cool things such as the night racing that would have been very difficult with an old style forward renderer. With deferred rendering the lighting stage is separate from the geometry stage(s) and hardware anti-aliasing like MSAA in a basic form won't produce correct results. Solutions to allow us to anti-alias had to be found - we came up with two methods to balance AA processing cost/quality over a wide range of PCs. A very large amount of time was spent on this and while some other developers just choose to do a post-pass edge detection filter we weren't satisfied with that, the 'HIGH" method for example was 3 months of R&D.
There are lots of 'tips' about overriding the AA mode - doing this will produce problems with lighting at edges and will also break other lighting components like Bloom, giving a visual look that we didn't intend. If you prefer the look with a driver over-ride then we've no problem with that - but the graphics team wanted a consistent look and feel, to do the many artists who created the tracks and cars justice.

There has been some confusion that our anti-aliasing uses the CPU - it does not. In the graphics options the 'Normal' mode uses MSAA with a special sampling trick to produce correct results at triangle edges - the 'HIGH' method extends this with a depth based search which requires a GPU with high bandwidth because the shaders are sampling many depth pixels for each pixel in the scene. Any performance issue on particular hardware is down to the characteristics of that GPU - there isn't anything we can do about this without a driver update.

To better balance very high-end CPUs the patch will include a 3rd anti-aliasing method which is CPU based - MLAA. We are working with Intel R&D to add this. On quad-core (and above) systems this will allow AA without any GPU cost and little impact to the frame rate to what you see when running with AA turned off currently. This will also help AMD based quad-core too.

Some people have noted that the game doesn't scale well with SLI/Crossfire - SLI performance scaling doesn't just automagically happen, it requires quite close collaboration with the GPU makers. We've been in regularly contact with NVidia and ATI throughout the development of the game, with their performance teams feeding back on any areas where we could improve, pooling our expertise with theirs. About 6 weeks of programmer time was spent pre-shipping on SLI/Crossfire scaling - we needed another 4 weeks since we went gold because of the complexity of implementing this in such a large engine. Both GPU makers have devoted a lot of time to some complex issues.

So yes, the upcoming patch includes SLI/Crossfire scaling. To give you an example a GTX 295 will go from 48fps to nearly 70fps in 1080p. Also the rendering team found some further optimizations so that normal (non SLI) graphics performance should be 5-10% faster with the patch.

Input lag - we've solved the latency issues reported using some wheels. There was a dead-zone issue and a threading problem introduced very late in development that have been fixed.

Garage screen crashes/CTDs - a fast button press issue that wasn't seen during development is also fixed in the patch.

A black screen issue on starting a race requiring a pause/unpause to fix is also addressed. This was caused by a timing difference with the protection system.

NVision - some reverse/double stereo issues with the mirrors and environment maps have been addressed in the patch. NVidia very kindly provided us with more hardware for the render team to address this - Kudos to them for that.

There are also some more minor fixes in the patch - the above represent the vast majority. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask in this thread and I'll do my best to reply.

Griff, thanks for joining! Can you please comment on whether or not the patch will allow PC users to once again use the -loose command parameter, making modding of the game much easier?

"-loose" in our developer terminology means "use loose files", which translated means files are individually loaded. We dropped loose file support to address one of the original complaints about Shift 1 - load-times. Our pakfiles (BFFs - Base File Format) are now loaded in one go, making the game data loading about 70% faster over single file loading - a typical test track with 8 AI loads in about 12 seconds on my dev PC from SSD for example.

It wouldn't be easy to resurrect individual file (loose) loading, because that feature was dropped very early in the development of the new game engine for SHIFT 2. That doesn't stop modding, it just means Tools to deal with BFFs are needed.

Hope you do not forget about the people who still have older graphic cards like 8800GTX, this cards still have to much to do, even more some of the new ones, itīs just about programmers want to make it happen.
And hope you solve the problems of the serious decrease of frame rate when racing with the AI.
Please make efforts on this patch, because the game idea is very nice with the new mechanic options, cars, etc. Now itīs just a matter to be playable.

Hi Griff,
thanks for the great news. Are you guys aware about the autolog issues - game crashes and errors cause by it? Is there a fix for it in the upcoming patch or is it a issue from EA system site?

...night racing that would have been very difficult with an old style forward renderer.

Achieving the same result, yes, but if you go for something a bit less amazing it should be quite easy (obviously depends how the engine has been built up).
Car headlights (32 in total I guess) and many trackside lights just isn't easy to pull off at decent performance on a mid-range PC. I understand that technically being able to even come close to it is amazing, but is it worth it? It occasionally does bring about delight, but personally I'm not sure if the extra problems are worth it.
That being said, people are working on it and improvements can be made (always! no matter how good you think or know your engine is) which is always a good thing.
So, if there's anything you lose at all (as a customer), it's time. I do not mind putting game aside until some improvements have been made and I'd be more than happy to pick it up when the time comes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griff

That doesn't stopping modding, it just means Tools to deal with BFFs are needed.

*cough* Would it cause too much trouble if the file structure leaks on the internet by "accident?" *cough* *wink* *wink*

Is anything being done to improve the wheel force-feedback & handling further?. A lot of people appear to be using the Juls minimod, after finding the stock effects/handling unsatisfactory. There is also the problem (on the logi DFGT at least) of having to alt-tab or pause/unpause the game, to get the force feedback to switch on properly.

Also, why no DX10 / DX11 since they can both utilize FSAA + Deferred Rendering?

At the start of Shift 2, DX11 was about 5% of our target audience. If you look at the recent Steam survey, it's still in the low teens percentage wise. There's not an infinite amount of development time in a commercial world, unfortunately.

Hi Griff thanks for joining and posting the update... you are a brave man!

Can you comment on the collision stutter issue that some of us suffer from? I suffered from it in S1 and now S2 and just to know that you have seen it and are aware it exists would make me feel better . If you have any advice on what may be causing it that would be great also.

Only other thing for now is I would like the option to go to the tuning menu from the event screen before starting the race. I know I can setup the car for all tracks beforehand, then race without thinking about it but who really does that? I’d say most of us are running a pretty default setting and applying it to all tracks.

Great work on the visuals, you have managed to date every other racing game I have by about 5-10 years! I will be uninstalling a few of them as I can’t see myself enjoying them anymore. I like my eye candy too much

Hey Griff could you tell us something more about the modability of the game?? With the current file structure is it possible for us to add new cars for example?? I bet everyone on this forum is dying to know that

Also are the team aware of bugs with the GUI in the tuning menu and with tuning settings not displaying as they should. Going into a test session often sorts it out.

Plus, can it be made possible to allow tuning for career events where you have to drive a loaner car such as eliminator and time attack races etc, as the default setups are very soft which makes the cars handle poorly and does the game no favours.

At the start of Shift 2, DX11 was about 5% of our target audience. If you look at the recent Steam survey, it's still in the low teens percentage wise. There's not an infinite amount of development time in a commercial world, unfortunately.

Thanks for the reply I suppose since Codemasters has been using it for a while (dirt 2, f1 2010, etc..) I figured most other racing game devs would too (though I'm sure I've underestimated the complexity of this). But DX11 aside, hasn't DX10 has been around for several years now?

At any rate, thanks so much for taking our questions! I am actually really enjoying the game! (been racing at night mostly since the absence of AA is least noticeable in this mode) Can't wait to try the new AA mode that will utilize my 4.2GHZ i7 Quadcore

Achieving the same result, yes, but if you go for something a bit less amazing it should be quite easy (obviously depends how the engine has been built up).
Car headlights (32 in total I guess) and many trackside lights just isn't easy to pull off at decent performance on a mid-range PC. I understand that technically being able to even come close to it is amazing, but is it worth it? It occasionally does bring about delight, but personally I'm not sure if the extra problems are worth it.
That being said, people are working on it and improvements can be made (always! no matter how good you think or know your engine is) which is always a good thing.

It's actually 64 headlights (16 cars, 2 front and 2 rear lights) - when we embarked upon night lighting we looked at our worst case - SPA with 15 AI on a start-grid (110 lights total afaik). Trying to forward render this scene sucked big-time.
In a forward renderer you need to code shaders that would handle say 4 or 8 lights that are the closest to the geometry being rendered. The result is a horror show of flickering lights, because the track lighting and cars lights project very far and choosing the lights with a limited number per mesh just doesn't work. We made the right choice and I'm very proud of the night racing in SHIFT 2

Hi Griff the game is great however, I love Ferrari, will the game get Ferrari for PC? I am willing to pay to drive the new F458 XD, also will there be a sound patch? I find that the blow off valve sounds in some cars sound very bleh and the engine sounds of some cars sound very artificial and the exessive exhaust back fire is too much, i dont think stock cars have back fire like that when ever you down shift

OK i have a question what was the reason for you guys at sms to encode files such as physicstweaker and other files from the physics category along with the ai modifing files??

The original Shift 1 used quite a lot of XML for it's data formats. XML is slow and inefficient to read/load, so we optimized as many formats as possible to a new format that we designed (HRDF - Human Readable Data Format). We got a 25% improvement in load-time and memory by doing this.

The original Shift 1 used quite a lot of XML for it's data formats. XML is slow and inefficient to read/load, so we optimized as many formats as possible to a new format that we designed (HRDF - Human Readable Data Format). We got a 25% improvement in load-time and memory by doing this.

Thank you for the response man. Well that's understandable. Is there an option that you guys will provide some tools for the comunity to mod and take advantage of this new format??

I absolutely love what your team has created and I hope it gets a great reception and sells well, so you guys can make a Shift 3 in the future. Congratulations.

The night racing looks absolutely amazing and I'm glad you pushed the hardware in other ways than super-slick, super-high-poly performance. Keep those innovations coming, they really add to the experience.

The patch sounds very promising. From a purely feature perspective, I think you should look at "quick race" a little more. There are numerous issues people have raised on this forum, including:
* Liveries on opponents (rarely in career either, except for GT1/3, retro, etc)
* Opponents using works conversions/upgrades
Apparently these features ^ aren't included in quick race. I can't prove this, because I've been mostly playing career so far.

Is it possible to have a patch where the helmet cam "look to apex" only look at the apex when you turn the wheel and not when you approach a corner? its very hard to drive when it auto look at apex when you approach a corner

The handling in a racing game with some "sim features" is a top priority, and I think there is a lack of work in force feedback racing wheels, since there are many complaints about some bugs with it.

The input lag first, you're already aware of that, and it's going to be fixed, that's a good thing.

Then, there is a particulary annoying bug with FFB activation. Sometimes in the game, the "grip sensation" disapears, and we have to pause and resume the game, or do alt+tab to go out from the game, and again alt+tab to come back.

In some cases, the FF get too strong, sometimes, it get too soft, and no matter what we do (pause, alt+tab), we have to wait some times to get a decent FFB back.

It seems there are more issues with Fanatec wheels (and with theses wheels, the wheel angle animation setting doesn't work at all).

It would be nice to fix those bugs, since Shift 2 gives its best with a FFB steering wheel...

There seems to be plenty of whining on the EA forums regarding steering wheel performance, so one thing I'm curious about is why there's no proper wheel profiles, for example F1 2010{admittedly after a patch} was a champ with my DFGT, I just had to adjust the deg of rotation in logitech profile and was immediately 1.5-2.5secs a lap faster everywhere....

The handling in a racing game with some "sim features" is a top priority, and I think there is a lack of work in force feedback racing wheels, since there are many complaints about some bugs with it.

The input lag first, you're already aware of that, and it's going to be fixed, that's a good thing.

Then, there is a particulary annoying bug with FFB activation. Sometimes in the game, the "grip sensation" disapears, and we have to pause and resume the game, or do alt+tab to go out from the game, and again alt+tab to come back.

In some cases, the FF get too strong, sometimes, it get too soft, and no matter what we do (pause, alt+tab), we have to wait some times to get a decent FFB back.

It seems there are more issues with Fanatec wheels (and with theses wheels, the wheel angle animation setting doesn't work at all).

It would be nice to fix those bugs, since Shift 2 gives its best with a FFB steering wheel...

Sorry for my poor english, and keep it up.

I can tell you that at least on Xbox 360 issues with Fanatec wheels are being addressed. (if you start the game with it plugged in, there is a bug in the driver that means FFB gets broken)

Hi Martin, first appreciate the post.
(1)
What im wondering about is why there seems to be an fps limitation when in my case a Q6600 at 3GHz and a Geforce 480 are maxing out out at approx 50 to 70% usage.
Over the years ive had both cpu and gpu bottlenecks(other machine or older games) but separately, this game and Codemasters F1 are the two notable exceptions where hardware is under utilized.
(2)
When ye decide on min medium and recommended specs, why not post the resolution that a user can expect a reasonable frame rate at.
eg Min Specs at x res will achieve 30fps everything on low

(3)
There has been a post or 2 from people suggesting that changing nvidia physx to gpu is increasing fps, any comment,
my understanding is that ye have used the cpu version of that physx code and it should in no way effect anything fps wise.
(4)
going back to part one , one thing i have noticed on my cpu is that one core is running at 95-100% but the other 3 are way down, is it the game code threads running the way they are, that is hampering the fps. having said that im probably averaging 50 fps everything at max at 1900 x 1200, the problem even though that average looks good is when it drops down to the mid 30s and i see my gpu and cpu usage drop down as well, something just doesnt seem right with that.
The 95% core changes from game start to game start. CPU is 6 hour Prime95 tested only 2 months ago.

Ill leave the ffb issues as your have your area of expertise and ill hope that one of the physics, wheel guys will come along and have a chat so we can ask some questions of him.

The one thing ive found in life is that customers are generally very accommodating when someone who knows something will talk to them, ill think itll show in this thread,
maybe its something for the SMS team to keep in mind
then we wont make mistakes like below
"There has been some confusion that our anti-aliasing uses the CPU - it does not"

EDIT
@Griff
Are you also part of the graphic team or do you have experience in another part of the game, just wondering as there is no point in asking you specific questions if that code wasn't part of your remit
Maybe you could clarify ?

Griff, the most relevant problem for me is about collision. It seems as if there are two physics engines in the game, one that deals with normal racing, and one that triggers on collisions.

One aspect I guess we can't expect to be fixed: cars seems to have no mass after a collision and they can spin or even fly unrealistically. For example I had a case where a car pushed another against a rail and that car got lifted in the air as if made of rubber. Same for cars that go spinning even after a small impact, after the collision triggers the movement is amplified or accelerated.

Instead I'd like to ask what's the deal with stutters still related to collision. They seem entirely built in the game and not performance related since even in a replay I can play a scene back and forth and it would always stutter in the same way. It doesn't even seem a normal framerate stutter. It's like if frames are jumped entirely and aren't even elaborated.

Can you confirm there are known problems about the collisions? Can we expect an improvement with the patch?

Always nice to see devs talk with community, needs to be done more often.. it is very much appreciated by the community.

At times my custom made vinyls don't show on my car, just a single color (even though they are actually listed in the editor).
Also, why are there no numbers available to us? They are on preset liveries.
I reckon this is a basic must have for any track based game

Pretty good game overall, but the AI is still an agressive pain in the ass (especially combined with this overpowered collision system. Tiniest nudge will send me in a spin..)
This is especially horrible on the hair pin part in Miami, the amount of restarts I had to do here.. ugh, don't get me started.

And PLEASE, add a way to skip cutscenes... if I need to restart a race a gazillion times, I don't want to have to watch this same stuff over and over and over and over again.

Thanks for your interest in the community, this should seriously be done more often

Will there be any further balancing of the AI and the car rating system in the first patch? It seems sometimes the AI improve beyond the player's car's performance when upgraded, and other times well below it (R32 is a good one).

This is a cheeky one, but will DLC be included with the first patch as it was with the second Shift 1 patch, so us PC games can enjoy it?

As the modders have found here, there seem to be some inconsistencies in the data for the cars, so did time constraints mean the team felt it was close enough not to delve into further?

There's this particular issue, I mean the game ignores changes made to the files inside the ControllerDefaults/PC folder - the problem is that not everybody experiences that strange bug. Anyway, disabling dampening for gamepads is impossible without any response from the game itself. Maybe it's somehow related to Windows 7 ?

Apart of this small (still critical) issue, you've done awesome job with shift 2, please don't bother with the haters out there, there's a lot more of us loving the game and I'm sure many of us will be ready to pay for a quality release you'll hopefully deliver in the future.

Please pay some attention to the xml files issue as it is still a gamebraking bug for many of us.